Zephaniah 3.1-17
Zephaniah prophesied in the reign of King Josiah
around 600 years before the time of Jesus.
What makes you want to get up in the morning?
What does God think of you?
What does God think of this world?
Is God judging or joyful? Condemning or comforting? Disapproving or delighting?
How we answer those questions
will also shape how we think of the year that’s past and the year that’s to come
and how we feel about getting up in the morning
A short answer is of course that God is both.
He is a God of both judgement and mercy.
We need to accept that we are more wicked than we can understand
and more loved than we can ever imagine.
There are two one sided views of God around which are unhelpful.
One is that God judges and condemns and there is no hope. We are lost.
People reject a God like that and try to live out of their own resources.
The other one sided view is that because God is merciful, it’ll be all right in the end.
He’s the heavenly Santa Claus. There’ll be goodies all round.
He’ll always forgive, it doesn’t matter what we’ve done.
That’s an attractive but completely inadequate view of God
and it doesn’t satisfy because it doesn’t tackle the big problem of our guilt before God.
We need a view of God which accepts both his right to judge
and his decision in Christ to be merciful.
Zephaniah chapter 3 tells us at least two things
GOD CARES ABOUT OUR SIN
GOD CARES ABOUT US
GOD CARES ABOUT OUR SIN
Vv 1-4 tell us that Jerusalem was a corrupt oppressive society
and at the root of that was a rejection of God.
v 2 ‘She obeys no one, she accepts no correction.
She does not trust in the LORD , she does not draw near to her God.'
Whether officials, rulers, prophets or priests
their evil was rampant, relentless destructive, arrogant, lawless -
they did not trust or draw near God, they just used him.
Do you know anyone like that?
But, whatever about the servants of the LORD, the LORD himself was different.
5 'The LORD within her is righteous; he does no wrong.
Morning by morning he dispenses his justice,
and every new day he does not fail'
but some people just didn’t get it. 5 ‘yet the unrighteous know no shame. '
The LORD then declares two things:
First in v 8 a solemn judgement
‘The whole world will be consumed by the fire of my jealous anger.’
for God cares about our sin.
It is no slight thing that we have disobeyed God and fallen away from him.
It is an awesome reality,
matched only or in fact exceeded by this awesome reality:
GOD also CARES ABOUT US
From v 9 onwards we read of a new community based in Jerusalem, purified, united,
a community not of the arrogant God rejecters ‘ those who rejoice in their pride.’
but the meek and humble, who trust in the name of the LORD '.
a community of truth and without fear (13)
a community that rejoices because God is with them.
15 'The LORD has taken away your punishment, he has turned back your enemy.
The LORD , the King of Israel, is with you; never again will you fear any harm.;
Doesn’t it remind you of Revelation 21.2-3 ?
‘I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God,
prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,
"Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them.
They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘
God who cares passionately about sin and will destroy those who remain in sin
arrogantly rejecting him
cares passionately for his people who humble themselves
and seek refuge in the name of the LORD
(as another version translates v 12)
This is not just true for the end times
although that is where it shall be completely fulfilled
but we may and should apply it today.
A s v 17 says which could be a motto for us for 2012
‘The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save.
He will take great delight in you,
he will quiet you with his love,
he will rejoice over you with singing.’
This is what Christmas really means.
This what Easter also means.
God is with us. Sin is taken away. His wrath is satisfied.
He delights in those who take refuge in him,
those for whom it means everything that Jesus is their saviour.
When our previous Moderator Norman Hamilton visited us last April
he used more than once in his loving and direct way this question:
‘What makes you want to get up in the morning?’
I hope and pray that 2012 will be the year when each one of us will want to get up
thrilled, delighted and excited
that God in his mercy delights in us and wants us to delight in him.
Yes, there will be days when we won’t feel like getting up
because we know that we have messed up, we have sinned
and we need to confess that and face up to it
or because other people are messing us about
and we don’t know how to handle it.
But what will make us get up is the sense that God shines on us in utter love in Jesus,
not denying that our sin is serious, but dealing with it in the sacrifice of Christ.
And then we will want to say or think each morning:
God delights in me. How will I delight in him?
If we delight in God, will we not want to keep in touch?
One of the things I enjoy at this time of year
is reviewing all the Christmas cards we have been sent and the letters.
It’s always interesting to know how the people you care for are doing.
Sometimes those Christmas bulletins become Christmas boasts
but I’d rather have the boastful news than no news.
One of the things I try to do is to work out who hasn’t sent us a card
not I hope in any reproachful, critical way, but out of concern,
and get in touch with them to find out how they are.
If you delight in God
whose friendship and care for you
is deeper and more dear than the deepest and dearest earthly relationship ...
keep in touch.
Read the Bible, deeply.
Psalm 1 and other Psalms commend those who delight in the law of God
who go over it again and again, taking its message in.
Pray, constantly and completely.
Tell God everything that’s going on, joys and sorrows,
what makes you get up in the morning
what makes you want to bury your head in the bed clothes.
Make friends with the friends of God and deepen each other’s delight.
i.e. we need to have a very good reason for missing church each Sunday
and we need to take the opportunities to meet together in smaller groups.
Delight to do his will.
Psalm 40 .8 I desire to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart."
Some versions say ‘I delight to do your will’
This is the practical challenge of delighting in God’s friendship, delighting in his word.
We love to take. Do we also love to give?
Jesus said (in John 14.23-24)
‘If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching.
My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.
He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. ’
One comment on that saying can also apply to our motto verse from Zephaniah 3.
‘While at one level the idea that God is within us is comforting,
it is also profoundly disturbing.
How can a holy God live side by side
with the profoundly unholy things that we know also live within us?
This God if he is true to himself will disturb us and challenge us.
He will want change. He does not come to us to fulfil our agenda but his.
Security? Yes. Cosiness? No.’
[J Graystone]
So my prayer for 2012 is that we should each know that God delights in us in Jesus
and that that will fire us up to delight in him
in such a way that on this day in 2013 we may be able to say
by God’s grace, I delight in him more and I obey his teaching more
I fulfil his agenda more.
Zephaniah 3.17
The Lord your God is with you,
he is mighty to save.
He will take great delight in you,
he will quiet you with his love,
he will rejoice over you with singing.
Lord, be your word my rule;
in it may I rejoice;
your glory be my aim,
your holy will my choice;
Your promises my hope;
your providence my guard;
your arm my strong support;
yourself my great reward.
Christopher Wordsworth, 1872
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